Our days are numbered

 Life was normal up until September 14, 3;00 pm.

She was posting a funny picture of a mom sleeping in the edge of her bed because her boys had taken over all of the bed. 

"I can't move," she captions it with many smiley faces. 

Life would change so drastically in the upcoming minutes, hours, days. 

She is breastfeeding her baby boy. 

Her eldest comes in the room asking for his coloring book. He was always coloring and drawing. 

As his teacher I knew this well. He would always ask me to make another picture in our virtual class, even after time had finished and I need to go to another class. 

"I can stay with you for another class if you let me, Miss Linda," he would say not caring that my other class was for three year olds. 

He really loved his classes. That comforts me. He wanted more. He tried correcting his English pronunciation and took pride on every little booklet I sent him that he learned to read by heart. 

I keep his videos of him reading his booklets. I keep all of my students' videos and pictures. 

Covid allowed me to teach kids in Panama. He was my Honduran. 

He was a prolific reader. He would take classes with an older girl who was already in first grade. He would stay at her level and even read some words faster than her. You could see he would practice after class and took it very seriously. 

I had a class with him that day. I had had a rough morning fighting with the girls with their schooling. Today had been an especially hard morning. Tears were shed. Screams were shouted. Hearts were heavy. I had a rehearsal later in the evening. 

I write to his mom canceling our class. "We'll have it on Thursday just this week," I write. The other girl had left the class because of family problems. "Tell my boy we'll have our first class just the two of us!!!!" I write with many exclamation points. I knew he was going to be disappointed that I was canceling his beloved class, but that he would be happy to know we would be all alone, just he and I, in our next class. 

He comes into the room a second time to ask for his coloring book. 

"I think it is in the car," says his mom, "I'll go get it for you as soon as I'm done feeding your brother."

The San Pedro Sula sun is unrelenting at that time. The car sits in the street with no roof overhead and the heat being concentrated for many hours. 

She doses off for a few minutes after breastfeeding. I know the feeling and reason quite well. How many times did it happen to me? I cannot recall. 

She hears her husband screaming. 

Her boy had gone to the car. 

For how many minutes? We can only guess. It couldn't have been 15 minutes ago. It's all it took. 

Her boy was passed out on the back car seat not breathing. 

They get in the car to run to a nearby clinic. They live far away from the city. Their car breaks. They run to the neighbor for help, get on his car, and it also breaks. His Aunt runs to get her car and they get to a clinic. It was too late. He was gone. 

I'm finishing my rehearsal. It was good rehearsal, and I stay back in the stage with the pianist singing some Whitney "There can be Miracles if You Believe." I see my phone has two missed calls and a message. 

"I lost my baby, Miss Linda. I lost my Melvin."

I read it and a shiver goes through my spine. I call immediately up on the church stage.

I cannot believe the story I am hearing. I am sobbing uncontrollably. 

My husband is looking at me scared from my face and tears. He understands what happened from what I am saying. 

I cry for minutes until he finally tells me I need to move because they need to close the church. 

"How could this happen? I could have prevented this. If only he had been in class with me! He would have been coloring and would have not been looking for that book." I say.

His mom has the same sentiments. "If only I had stopped breastfeeding and gone to the car to get his book. He had never done this. He would never even go to the backyard alone." 

Heartbreak is a heavy pain to bear. On Wednesday, the pain was so intense I thought it was going to break me. If I am feeling this way, how is she feeling? 

I keep repeating to myself "He is not dead. He is alive. I just can no longer see him but I will again," when the tears come to my eyes. My girls saw me cry too much last week. I can see it was causing my eldest anxiety. They don't know what happened. "Why are you crying?" they ask. "Something happened in Honduras, but don't worry," I say. 

That same night I come home. I go to my girls room. I grab Emmalee and take her to Kaylee's bed. I get between them and hold them close. I cry and say "I'm sorry." 

Ecclesiastes 7:2 It is better to go to a house of mourning

    than to go to a house of feasting,
for death is the destiny of everyone;
    the living should take this to heart.

I feel like I am writing a horror tale in this post. It is indeed a horror tale that a mom is enduring and living and carrying. How? I do not know. 

We forget that our days are numbered. "If only" has no purpose in our vocabulary. There was nothing she or her could have done. It was his day. That day belongs to God alone. 

Psalms 139:16  Your eyes saw my unformed body;

    all the days ordained for me were written in your book
    before one of them came to be.

Someone shared a story with the quote "It is not for you to understand why things happened. It is for you to learn how to live with them." I guess it is a good advice for someone like me always in pursuit of why. 

I kept remembering what I wrote on Pastor Bob's memorial post: "He believed in what he lived, and he lived what he believed." Do I believe this child is with Jesus? Yes. Do I believe he is alive and well? Yes. Do I believe I'll see him again? Yes. Then I must live like someone with such hope and faith. But I also remember the words of my dear Diane: "Everything has it's time. You need to feel it all before you move forward. If you skip steps to be 'Christian-correct', you'll have to go back and will have to go back many times. Don't skip over the grief and pain and hurt."  

I write this with the hope that this story makes you think of your own life. What are the useless feelings and emotions we waste our days with? What missed opportunities to love our children and loved ones fervently are we not taking? We MUST be preparing ourselves for our last day here because it IS coming. We never know when it will be the last of anything. 

My sweet boy will be missed. My heart still aches at remembering him and his sweetness and joyfulness. He was such a happy boy on this earth. I tell his mom to take comfort on what a happy life he enjoyed by her side, even if the pain of losing him is so hard to endure.

Join me in praying for her. Her name is Eimy. Pray that she, her husband, baby, and family can endure this terrible passing. Pray their marriage can endure. Pray they don't blame themselves. Pray that the Lord may work miracles in the healing of their hearts. Pray that I may continue being close to her and that the Lord gives me wisdom and words to help her in this healing journey. Pray that they may all come to Jesus to share in the hope of seeing our little boy again. 

Pastor Bob, Hope Profession PhD

Our church will be celebrating Pastor Bob's life this Sunday, September 5th. You can tune in on our Youtube channel Crossroads Bible Church, 8 am in Spanish and 11 am in English. 

For the past 4 years of my life I've had the wonderful privilege of sitting on Pastor Bob's Sunday school. You know what this Sunday school has meant to me and what it has done for my faith, for I have written Pastor Bob's name on my blog several times as you can read here, here, here, and here. My dearest Pastor Bob went to his eternal home last Tuesday, August 24, 2021 the very day he was celebrating his 59th wedding anniversary with his much beloved Mary. 

Can a man depart from this earth having only positive things said about him from everyone that surrounded him? My Pastor Bob has proven you can. But what do these positive things being said about him do? Point to Jesus. 

If I had to use only two words to describe Pastor Bob, I would use the words DUTY and LOVE. 

Let's start with the first word, Duty. 

I met Pastor Bob during a time when I was heavily struggling with my physical health still recovering from the blast of chemo and radio and all the surgeries that stripped my body from normal function. But, I was very comfortable letting all that be "justification" for my lack of service or my lack of character. Who can blame me? Who can ask more of me after all I had suffered? At first, my heart was hardened by the "no one understands me" thought that also comfortably allowed me to be cynical with others. And then I met Pastor Bob. Pastor Bob not only could understand me; he could rebuke me. And rebuke me he did. He had been living with cancer for the past 9 years when I met him. He knew all about the pain of chemo (constant chemo in his case), the pain of neuropathy (which in his case was so severe compared to mine that he described the sensation in his feet as walking on stumps.). He understood alright! And that gave me an instant connection to him. In those first years, he and Mary would check up on me constantly which made me feel so absolutely loved. There was something about both of them that just drew you in, something in their smile, in the way they talked to you, in the way they looked at you. My mentor Diane said it perfectly on our remembrance meeting last Sunday. She said, "Bob had the special ability of making you feel like you were his favorite... And then you realized he made everyone feel that too." It was exactly like I would have described it. I felt his favorite. And then I learned others felt that too, which was kind of heartbreaking, hehe. Can you imagine having that ability of making those who surround you feel like you are their favorite person? It was Pastor Bob's super power. When I started at church, I signed up for a Sunday school class in Spanish that was taught in the main hall. I liked it, but it wasn't what I was looking for. There was this one time when I had just started serving in the music ministry that I was feeling very sleepy, and I wanted to take a nap between church meetings (which is when Sunday school takes place.) I found a dark corner in a room next to the main hall, and there I heard it for the first time: Pastor Bob's Sunday school.  My dear Diane, who I still didn't know closely, was attending it, which drew my attention further because I also wanted to find a way to get close to her. Everyone was participating and talking, which didn't happen in my other class. I knew in my heart that was the place for me to be. It had been a long time since I had desired Biblical instruction and had received it more in the obligated sense. I longed for my Sunday school classes where Pastor Bob would break down verse by verse of the book we were reading and sometimes only cover 5 verses per class. And there I learned about his duty, which he made it clear was my duty. Pastor Bob didn't believe in wasting your time, wasting your emotions, wasting your resources. "Your duty is to the Kingdom, to God, and the gospel," he would teach. He certainly had lived that way during his entire life as a missionary to various tribes in Panama and in his service as main pastor to our church. But his duty had not ended with cancer or a "more mature age". He kept on his work with "Juntos Podemos Curundu" which he presided over. He kept on his small group and his Sunday school. Very few understood what his health struggles were because he never once showed them, complained about them, or allowed that to stop him from his duty of living everyday for Christ. But I knew. I knew the chronic pain he must have endured for almost a decade. I knew the fatigue of chemo, the impotence of a body that you no longer count on or know, the stubbornness of wanting to be normal when your body is broken. Pastor Bob was nicknamed "Bob the builder" rightfully so, but his family would have wanted him to stop his building prowess for the sake of his body. Watching his unbreakable peace, undeniable joy, and his unrelenting trust in his Savior were a constant slap in my faith to "snap out of it." 

Hebrews 10:23 Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise.

Pastor Bob certainly lived this verse. My struggles were all that were before me back then. Pastor Bob would call me over and over again to put Jesus before me. And if I was complacent in my sin because "I'm in pain", Pastor Bob would not let that slide. He would call me to fulfill the duty I was called on to do: live as for the Lord. 

1 Corinthians 13 1If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. 3 If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it;[a] but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.

This chapter in the Word is very well-known. The love chapter. But I feel it perfectly described my dearest Pastor Bob too. Here are other things said about him during our remembrance meeting last Sunday: "Bob was a rescuer. He lived what he believed, and believed in what he lived. He loved to be a fisherman, but was also a fisher of man. A chocolate lover." That last one made me happy, because he once told me my chocolate cake was his favorite chocolate cake in the world. I'll be making that cake for my birthday celebration this weekend. Some tears will most certainly fall after making it, for I always sought to save a piece for my dear Pastor Bob. "My doctor says I shouldn't eat that, but your cake really tempts me," is what he said the last time I brought a piece to our Sunday school for him. I knew what that meant. This was pre-pandemic. Bob's love for people was very on the nose. He couldn't hide it. My dear Tia Mercedes would tell me stories of discussions she would have with Bob about Juntos Podemos. "He needs to be tougher," she would say, "but he loves too much." Tia Mercedes would never miss a day of Sunday school and would make me accountable if I missed it. The Lord certainly has surrounded me with the most amazing people that I needed to be surrounded by. I wish I would have taken up my tia´s invitation to go to Bob's small group. I missed the past two months of Bob's Sunday school because I had volunteered to serve in the kid's combined Sunday school for those months. I had felt in my heart my time was running out and asked Miss Zuly if I could miss my last day of combined Sunday school to be on Bob's class. That class was taught by Selwyn, Diane's husband. I had indeed missed my chance. I thought I had more time. I really did. Bob made you believe it. Even to the end, he wouldn't let out how bad it was and what it meant that he kept on teaching us. I take solace that the last months we had been recording the Sunday school, and I can still watch him. I wished I had had more years with him like most of our Sunday class did. I got four years. I could have had 30 years, and it would not have been enough. I love Pastor Bob and his wife Mary with all my heart. Please pray for Mary. I can't fathom what it's like to lose my life's partner of 59 years. Pray for her health that has also been in decline the past two years. I am overjoyed to know Bob is finally home pain-free, cancer-free, with his new body ready to build again. 

I titled this post: Pastor Bob, Hope Profession PhD because I think that is what Bob's profession was: hope. I had lived without hope after cancer for a long time. Bob showed me it was possible to live with cancer and have a PhD in hope. He lived what he believed indeed! Here are more verse that describe how Pastor Bob lived:

 Romans 5 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

Romans 15 13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Romans 8 24 For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? 25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

18 Proverbs 23 17 For surely there is a hereafter,
And your hope will not be cut off.

Romans 12 12 Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.

Pictures by @ruthysworld

Selwyn ended our meeting with this verse and I want to end on it too:

Revelations 1 1 The revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, 2 who testifies to everything he saw—that is, the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. 3 Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near.